Section 8 Single Player Hands-on

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Exclusive look at the single-player campaign for TimeGate's latest.

By Martin Robinson

Section 8 is a futuristic first-person shooter powered by Unreal Engine 3, starring a troop of maverick space soldiers clad foot-to-toe in armour who fight their good fight on the dusty vistas of some alien land. Please don't run away because there's more – beyond the game's comically generic veneer lies a shooter with impeccable taste, picking the best parts from the great and good of the fragging fraternity and wrapping them up in one neat package. Originality might not be one of its priorities, but that's certainly not holding it back from providing some delirious thrills.

The story, for what it's worth, centres round the titular Section 8 – the 8th Armoured Infantry who are renowned for the do-or-die missions they engage with. Their tour of duty takes them throughout Earth's far-flung colonies, which are being terrorised by rebel faction the ARM of Orion, a group who goes around disconnecting each planet's communications and thus maintaining a veil of secrecy. Again, so far so generic, but Section 8's plot is little more than the flimsiest of excuses for some seriously hardcore gunplay.

Developers TimeGate may not be the most renowned studio in the industry but the Texas outfit has been quietly churning out some solid genre entries. 2001's Kohan pumped some fresh air in a stagnating RTS market and was followed up by an equally impressive sequel. F.E.A.R Files may have not shown off the developer in the best possible light, but now it has been freed from the shackles of following in someone else's footsteps, it's making the first-person shooter it has always wanted to make.

Essentially, Section 8 is a game that's born out of a million multiplayer matches played by its creators. It's a game that, as we mentioned before, borrows freely from genre greats such as Battlefield 2142 and Tribes, but one that shows a shrewd understanding of its inspirations by only borrowing the very best bits.

For the multiplayer that means an intricate class system, detailed and highly customisable loadouts as well as an interesting solution to the spawn camping that can so often blight competitive play. It adds up to a package that's impressed in our previous previews - it's as assured an experience as any other that's available on Xbox Live or with the more traditional mouse and keyboard, and it's sure to attract a dedicated following once it launches.

But we're not here to talk about the multiplayer, as we're privy to an exclusive look at Section 8's single-player mode. Admittedly, the game's campaign isn't the main focus for developer TimeGate and instead acts as more of a primer for the online play – and as such the multiplayer traits feed directly into the solo experience.